The nailbiting touchdown — in which nobody was injured — was the second instance of a malfunctioning flight in less than a week within the country.

The Myanmar Airlines flight UB-103 — an Embraer-190 model — was grounded at around 9 am in Mandalay (0230 GMT), a city popular among foreign tourists, with all 89 people on board including seven crew members, safe.

An unverified video circulated on social media showing a graceful landing before the nose of the jet tipped over and ground to a halt.

    Ye Htut Aung, deputy director general of Myanmar’s Civil Aviation Department, told AFP the pilot tried repeatedly to drop the landing gear at the front of the plane — first through its computer system, then manually.

“They tried hard twice by flying around twice and asked to check whether the nose wheel dropped or not,” Ye Htut Aung said, calling it a “technical fault”.

“So they had to land with the back wheels… The pilot could land it skillfully,” he said. “There were no casualties.”

Myanmar National Airlines are now sending engineers to Mandalay to check on the aircraft, Ye Htut Aung said, adding that all jets get a daily flight check.

Passenger Soe Moe told AFP: “Smoke came out a little when we landed… All passengers are okay.”

Sunday’s incident comes just days after a Biman Bangladesh Airlines plane crash-landed and slid off a runway while landing in Yangon airport during a storm on Wednesday, leaving 11 passengers injured.

Myanmar’s monsoon season has caused problems for commercial and military flights in the past.

A military plane crashed into the Andaman sea in 2017 with 122 people on board — one of the deadliest aviation accidents in the country’s history — which authorities attributed to bad weather.

And in 2015, a passenger plane by Air Bagan veered off the runway due to bad weather and heavy rain.

Officials in the northeastern state of Sikkim said they received the first distress call from around 50 people cut off in the remote Mukuthang Valley in December.

(FILES) In this file photo taken on December 13, 2014, an Indian local walks with his yak on a snow-covered road during the season�s first snowfall at Kufri, some 17 kms from the northern hill town of Shimla on December 13, 2014. – Indian officials on May 12 said that at least 300 to 500 Yaks had starved to death in a remote and picturesque Himalayan valley of northeastern Sikkim state. // AFP PHOTO

Following very heavy snowfall the residents asked for help providing feed for their herd of around 1,500 yaks, a source of local milk, milk products, transportation and wool.

“We made several attempts to reach them but couldn’t. No roads or air transport could reach there because of the weather conditions. We reached there now and have already confirmed at least 300 yak deaths,” local official Raj Kumar Yadav told AFP.

“The local families say that 500 yaks have died because of starvation. We are trying to confirm that. Around 50 yaks are also receiving urgent medical attention,” Yadav added.

Yaks are one of the mainstays of the region’s tourism-dependent economy.

A few yaks die because of extreme conditions in the region each year, but the authorities say that this year’s toll is unprecedented.

“The weather was too harsh. One heavy spell of snowfall in December was followed by even more snowfall and even the grass didn’t grow. They died because of both cold and starvation,” Yadav added.

The authorities are making arrangements to bury the dead yaks and assist local families in the valley, around 70 kilometres (45 miles) from state capital Gangtok.

Official sources said that the attackers wearing uniform of security forces and armed with modern weapons barged into the hotel and opened fire after taking the hotel staff hostage. Security guards deployed at the hotel offered resistance but three of them were shot dead by the attackers. Two of the deceased were identified as Rasheed and Zahoor.

Gunshots fired by the assailants also left Anwar, Ali Raza, Jawed and an unidentified man injured who were taken to hospital.

At least three security guards lose their lives; AP news agency claims four assailants killed

Security forces rushed to the hotel and launched an operation. According to AP news agency, the four attackers have also been killed.

The banned Baloch Liberation Army’s (BLA) Majeed Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack and named the militants involved in it.

According to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations, four terrorists attempted forced entry into the PC hotel in the afternoon. Security forces cordoned off the area and safely evacuated the people present in the hotel.

“Terrorists [have been] encircled by security forces in staircase leading to top floor [of the hotel],” the ISPR said, adding that a clearance operation was in progress.

Later, DIG of Makran range Muneer Ahmed Zia Rao said the first, second and third floor of the hotel had been cleared and the attackers had taken refuge on the fourth floor where a shootout between them and security forces continued.

Sources said that the gunmen entered the hotel promises at around 5pm. Soon Navy commandos and Army and Frontier Corps troops launched an operation. Navy helicopters landed on the roof of the hotel.

Official sources denied rumours about the presence of Chinese and other foreigners in the hotel.

“There was no foreigner staying in the hotel when it came under attack,” Balochistan Home Minister Ziaullah Langove said. “There are reports of a few people sustaining minor injuries,” he told AFP.

A police official said that there was no guest in the hotel and only local staff was present there, adding that the staff was also evacuated safely by security forces.

Security officials said that the security forces after taking control of the hotel had cleared the first floor of the hotel. “The terrorists have been confined in a portion of the hotel where an exchange of fire continues with brief intervals,” they said.

“We have been hearing heavy firing from the hotel since around 5.30pm onwards. A blast was also heard in Gwadar,” Musa Baloch, a resident of the port city told Dawn.

He said the roads leading to Koh-i-Batil, the hill on which the five-star hotel is located, had been closed by a heavy contingent of security forces. “No one is allowed to travel to Koh-i-Batil.”

Meanwhile, reports suggested that the security forces were still busy in clearing the hotel and the gunmen were still in the hotel when this news report was filed.

Mohammad Aslam, the on-duty officer in Gwadar, said ambulances and rescue officers were waiting at a road leading to the hotel, and that he could hear the rattle of gunfire but that the operation was coming to an end.

Spokesman Jeeyand Baloch claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the BLA’s Majeed Brigade and also released the pictures of four attackers, identifying them as Hammal Fateh Baloch alias Habib, Asad Baloch alias Mehrab, Munseeb Baloch alias Kareem and Kochkol Baloch alias Commando.

From an escalating trade war to an influence struggle in the South China Sea, “we’ve entered a period of strong and long-term rivalry between the United States and China,” said Alice Ekman of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).

President Donald Trump’s combative stance, highlighted by the new round of import tariffs imposed this week, has upended decades of cautious statecraft in the West aimed at coaxing China to join the global order.

“A paradigm shift in America’s China policy is under way, with major implications for the world’s most important bilateral relationship and, more importantly, for global security,” said Brahma Chellaney of the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.

The fallout could prove long-lasting, requiring countries in Europe, Asia and Africa to rethink how they engage with two diametrically opposed superpowers.

“The profound policy shift under Donald Trump will outlast his presidency because it reflects a bipartisan consensus in Washington that the earlier policy of ‘constructive engagement’ with China had failed,” Chellaney said.

For Trump, “the fatal error was letting China join the World Trade Organisation in 2001,” said Jean-Francois Di Meglio of the Asia Centre research and advisory firm in Paris.

“Before then, we had a Chinese administration that played the game on westernising, which led the United States and the EU to say, ‘Let’s give them more than the benefit of the doubt, let’s open the door and give them developing country status’,” he said.

“China saw it has a huge victory. And 2001 is when its trade surpluses exploded and Beijing’s currency reserves got so huge.”

– Opposing visions –

So far, Trump’s moves haven’t had any major negative consequences for the US economy, but analysts say the fallout from their escalating rivalry could eventually be felt worldwide.

“Humiliating the Chinese… means exposing his successors to a huge problem with China, which isn’t North Korea or any other country that can be pushed around without major repercussions,” Di Meglio said.

And even if their trade war doesn’t escalate further, there are plenty of other areas for confrontation, such as China’s growing technological might, in particular its prowess with ultrafast 5G cellular networks.

Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative of infrastructure and trade development across Asia and Africa and even into Europe will also keep tensions simmering.

Yet analysts contacted by AFP played down the risk of a “Thucydides’s Trap” as envisioned by American political scientist Graham Allison.

The concept refers to a rising power inspiring fear in an established power that leads to outright war.

Nonetheless, the antagonism will force other nations to move carefully on a more delicate geopolitical chessboard.

“In the long term, it’s possible to envisage the emergence of two rival poles” and “two distinct forms of globalisation,” said Ekman.

“The polarisation of international relations would provoke a new form of competition over infrastructure networks, standards, international institutions, et cetera,” she said.

Di Meglio added that European firms hoping to win Chinese contracts might be told they have to replace sensitive technologies or components that might later be used by Americans.

“Imagine that happening with phones, or cars, in any number of industries, and you’d have the world splitting along lines we can’t foresee — would they occur in Germany? In Central Europe? In Central Asia?” he said.

In effect, nations might be forced to pick sides, aligning themselves with either the US or China.

“Other countries would have a choice of options that would be influenced by their political preferences, their geographic proximities, and their economic vulnerabilities to one of the two countries,” Ekman said.

Haitian-American rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, 46, and Low Taek Jho, 37, were accused of conspiracy and other charges in the four-count indictment unsealed on Friday.

Low, also known as Jho Low, is a key figure in what is known as the 1MDB scandal, which has rocked Malaysian political and financial circles.

The presidential candidate receiving the contributions was not identified in the indictment and was referred to only as “Candidate A.”

But it has been widely reported and it was clear from the indictment that it was Obama.

The indictment alleges that between June and November 2012, Low transferred $21.6 million to Michel “for the purpose of funneling significant sums of money into the United States presidential election.”

Michel allegedly paid about $865,000 to about 20 “straw donors” so they could make donations in their names to a presidential joint fundraising committee.

More than $1 million was allegedly funneled to an independent committee also involved in the election.

“The object of the conspiracy was for Michel and Jho Low to gain access to, and potential influence with, Candidate A and his administration, by secretly funneling foreign money from Jho Low through Michel,” the indictment said.

“To gain further access to and influence with Candidate A and his administration, Jho Low attended or arranged for his associates to attend events at the White House with Candidate A,” the indictment said.

It is illegal for foreign nationals to contribute to US election campaigns.

According to the indictment, Michel and Low concealed their scheme from Obama and his campaign. Michel appeared in court in Washington on Friday and pleaded not guilty. Low remains at large and his whereabouts are unknown.

A spokesperson for Low proclaimed his innocence in a statement. “Mr. Low is innocent — and he is presumed innocent under US law,” the statement said.

“The allegations against Mr. Low have no basis in fact: Mr. Low has never made any campaign contributions directly or indirectly in the US and he unequivocally denies any involvement in or knowledge of the alleged activities.”

Low has been indicted in New York in connection with the 1MDB case for allegedly conspiring to launder billions of dollars.

Huge sums were stolen from sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, allegedly by ex-prime minister Najib Razak and his cronies in a crime that stretched around the world.

Another defendant in the 1MDB case, Ng Chong Hwa, a former Goldman Sachs banker also known as Roger Ng, was extradited to the United States from Malaysia last week and pleaded not guilty in a court in New York on Monday.

Low, who was an adviser to Razak, is accused of plundering the fund to fuel a jet-setting lifestyle which included expensive yachts, purchases of multi-million dollar properties and lavish parties with Hollywood stars.

His Majesty attended the annual Windsor Horse Show at the invitation of the King of Bahrain, King Hamad Bin Isa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa, which was graced by Queen Elizabeth II on Friday (May 10).

Sultan Ibrahim said he personally met the British monarch with King Hamad after her arrival at the world-famous equestrian event.

His Majesty  – who is a keen equestrian and polo player himself – spent several minutes talking to the Queen about their mutual passion for horses and horse riding.

At the event, Sultan Ibrahim also exchanged pleasantries with Queen Elizabeth II and her second son Prince Andrew, who was keen to know more about Johor.

His Majesty explained to the Duke of York that Johor has a strong agricultural and industrial-based economy, especially a flourishing manufacturing sector with several major investments by British companies.

This includes Dyson Ltd, a high-tech home appliances producer, which has made Senai its global manufacturing hub.

The United Kingdom-based manufacturer has also set up a research, design and development (RDD) centre in Senai.

Sultan Ibrahim also highlighted the strong presence of British universities and international schools in Johor, including the University of Southampton, Newcastle School of Medicine, University of Reading and Marlborough College and International School.

More than 162 volunteers died in four provinces — Jakarta, West Java, Riau Islands and Southeast Sulawesi — after working long hours on April 17. West Java saw the highest number of deaths at 131.

According to the Health Ministry, the 22 deaths in Jakarta were caused by myocardial infarction, heart failure, hepatic coma, stroke, respiratory failure and meningitis, while those in West Java were triggered by heart failure, stroke, respiratory failure, sepsis and asthma.

In Riau and Southeast Sulawesi, KPPS officials died of heart failure and traffic accidents.

Data from the General Elections Commission (KPU) showed that most of those who died were between 50 and 70 years old.

Health Ministry secretary-general Oscar Primadi called on the public to refrain from speculating on the causes of the officials’ death. He also dismissed accusations that the deaths had been orchestrated.

“The deaths of election officials were not something we expected. Their duties required excellent health. Therefore, the officials who were already suffering from certain illnesses likely began showing symptoms after working long hours,” Oscar said in a written statement.

According to government data, 496 poll administrators died after election day across the country. Witness reports say the victims were exhausted after working twelve hours nonstop.

Oscar said the Health Ministry had deployed health workers to polling stations and increased their numbers after the death toll continued to rise.

“The medical workers were there to provide health checks during the election for the officials and voters,” he said.

The KPPS deaths have triggered rumors and accusations surrounding the election process. The campaign team of presidential ticket Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno has claimed that the fatalities were somehow connected to efforts to commit election fraud that would disadvantage its candidate pair.

On Wednesday, Prabowo demanded that authorities conduct an autopsy on the deceased, saying that never in Indonesia’s history had an election caused this many deaths.

A group of election observers from Gadjah Mada University’s (UGM) School of Politics and Social Sciences (Fisipol) challenged the accusations.

It pointed out that the immense pressure poll administrators had felt from the challenging ticket’s constant claims of cheating may have had an effect on their health.

“They may have become depressed, gotten sick and then died,” team leader Abdul Gaffar Karim said on Thursday.

He also underlined that aside from old age, the recruitment process for KPPS officials was flawed because it did not require participants to declare their health problems.

They were only required to deliver letters from community health centers (Puskesmas) stating that they were healthy.

The team is currently working with its counterparts from the UGM’s School of Medicine and School of Psychology to study the deaths.

“The result of our research will be a recommendation on how to improve the country’s election system,” Abdul said.

Fisipol dean Erwan Agus Purwanto assured that the study would not delegitimize the 2019 election process since the deaths had been “unplanned and occurred across the country”.

School of Psychology dean Faturochman said his team would study the workload of KPPS officials, who were responsible for opening polling stations and later count and report ballots for legislative and presidential elections.

School of Medicine dean Ova Emilia believes that many of the KPPS officials might not have been aware of the risk of their illness. For example, heart-related illnesses could lead to death when a person is severely fatigued, she said.

“We’ll interview their close relatives. We will also conduct post-mortem exams if possible,” Ova added.

Doucs are native to Southeast Asia. With their five-colour coats, they stand out from the great family of primates around the world. And so, they are dubbed “queen of primates”.

Photographers love red-shanked doucs because of their colours. With time, the colours of a douc transform and become complete. Doucs under eight months have a blackish-blue face, pale chestnut body, gray tail, and black arms and feet. As a young adult from eight months to three years, doucs gradually adopt their five-colour coat: pink face, black head, hands and feet, gray body, white arms and tail. Most outstanding is their reddish-brown legs from the knee to the foot.

The current population of doucs at Son Tra numbers about 1,300 and zoologists say they have the most beautiful colours of their species.

A young douc performing this jump on its own is a sign that it is independent. Adult red-shanked doucs can jump as far as seven metres, proof of their strength and acrobatic finesse.

When I look back at my photos of doucs frozen in flight, I am always reminded of this “mid-air dance”. Powerful arms help doucs move easily through the forest by swinging from branch to branch as they jump from tree to tree.

I eagerly snap images whenever I see infant red-shanked doucs, creatures both innocent and mischievous. I am moved by the presence of infant doucs for another reason: Red-shanked doucs are on the Red List of Threatened Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). So, infant red-shanked doucs give hope for the future of this rare primate species.

I have shot quite a lot of pictures of the leading doucs because I had to face them before I could approach the other members of their families. Red-shanked doucs live in groups. The smallest unit is a family with a male, a female, and a few infants. A male living with many females can have up to twenty members. Each family has a male leader. He guards the other members as they eat and play, and alerts them when danger is near. He also helps his mate to rear their children.

Other groups comprise several small families with blood relations. Each group has its own territory and does not enter that of its neighbours.

Red-shanked doucs eat almost constantly, though they are not a gluttonous species. On the contrary, they are quite fussy about what they eat. Among the more than 1,000 species of plants at Son Tra, only about 150 species are consumed by doucs.

According to zoologists, their diet comprises 88 per cent leaves, 10 per cent fruits and seeds, 1.5 per cent flowers, and less than 1 per cent bark/pith.

Staple plants of red-shanked doucs at Son Tra include parashorea, crepe-myrtle, morning glory, garcinia, ficus, and ancistrocladus.

Such a menu barely provides enough nutrition, which is why they must eat throughout the day.

At institutes in Vietnam and around the world, many scientific works and papers are dedicated to researching red-shanked doucs at Son Tra.

In addition to the IUCN and the Douc Langur Foundation (USA), there is the NGO GreenViet based in Da Nang. Since 2012, GreenViet has led a movement to protect this rare primate species.

Inland cultivation of expensive tiger puffer fish has spread from Tochigi Prefecture to other areas in Japan, helping revitalize local economies.

Intensive research was undertaken to make use of local hot springs.

Cultivation pools have been set up in plastic greenhouses on a former swimming pool site in Nasukarasuyama, Tochigi Prefecture. In the pools, tiger puffers, which grow to about 35 centimeters in length and one kilogram in weight, swim smoothly.

Nasukarasuyama-based company Yumesozo, which cultivates tiger puffer in water from a hot spring, launched its business in the neighboring town of Nakagawa about 10 years ago. The company currently sells 25 tons of puffer fish a year to about 150 stores, mainly in the prefecture.

President Katsuaki Noguchi, 62, focused on the prefecture’s abundant chloride springs as a resource to develop the region, while running an environmental consulting firm in the prefecture. As he researched the composition of the hot springs’ water, he found that it contained elements including sodium and potassium, and its salt concentration was about 1.2 percent.

Living cells’ salinity is about 0.9 percent, about the same as saline solutions used for medical purposes. Fish living in seawater with a salinity of about 3.5 percent excrete excess salt from their gills. Noguchi thought saltwater fish could be cultivated in the hot spring water.

Tiger puffers he raised in water from a chloride spring grew as well as in artificial seawater. Although it takes 1½ years for fish raised in sea farms to be ready for market, those grown in the hot spring water reached market size in one year.

Toyoji Kaneko, 62, a University of Tokyo professor specializing in fish physiology, told Noguchi that tiger puffer fish living in hot spring water do not need to burn calories to adjust the salt content in their bodies, and there is no winter chill to also slow down their growth.

Based on Kaneko’s theory, Noguchi also conducted research to improve the taste of tiger puffer. He used a technique to transfer tiger puffer from a hot spring to a pool of water with the same salt concentration as seawater, before the fish’s shipment. Noguchi confirmed that tiger puffer’s taste improves when it injects amino acids into its muscle tissue to cope with the rapid change of osmotic pressure caused by the sudden increase in salinity, as it had been accustomed to the lower salt concentration of the chloride spring.

When requested, the company visits hot spring resorts around the country to promote tiger puffer farming. There are already 18 sorts of “local hot spring tiger puffers” nationwide. “On-shore aquaculture has a low risk of natural disasters. I think marine fish farming using chloride springs or artificial seawater with a low salt concentration will spread in the future,” Kaneko said.